Time for Hope
by TMBlue
Summary: COMPLETE! Hermione's last night before she returns to Hogwarts gets emotional. For azaleablue.


_**A/N:**_ _This fic is for_ _ **azaleablue**_ _, who celebrated her birthday on Tuesday (sorry for the delay!) and who has a special place in her heart for angst, as I do! Love you! Happy belated birthday!_

 _The idea here comes from some personal experience, actually, which means you all may have some TMI about me now… But I feel like Hermione, being an anxious person in some respects, would possibly fall into this sort of thing, especially given her crazy rollercoaster of a relationship with Ron over the years. It did get a little angstier than I had planned, but it gets DIRTY at the end… Hope you enjoy! x_

 _Oh, and a nod to remedial-potions / bowtruckles for implanting me anew with Hermione getting distracted in the middle of something emotional by physical attraction to Ron :)_

 _And in case you are a music obsessed person like me, this fic's title comes from the song **"Beneath with Me" by Kaskade & deadmau5 ft. Skylar Grey**. _

* * *

She would be on the train to Hogwarts in seven hours, and she was sitting on the side of his bed, in his shirt, sobbing. She knew he didn't know what to do, anymore, and a distant part of her also knew that this was irrational, but she couldn't stop.

Everything had been fine, the night before. She'd arrived after dinner with her parents, and she'd walked around the orchard with Ron before coming inside. They'd quietly sipped tea in the kitchen until his parents had gone to bed, then headed upstairs, locked and silenced his room, and slowly taken off each other's clothes. She should have realised, she now considered, that she wasn't being honest, hardly a dozen words exchanged between them over that next hour.

By midnight, she'd started some stupid fight, feeling disconnected, and he'd responded too casually… and she'd shouted at him until he'd shouted back, out of frustration and confusion. More confusion, if she could manage to think about it properly. But that was the problem now. She _couldn't_ think properly.

So, she'd been crying on and off for almost five bloody hours, threatened at least twice to go back to her parents' home, told him at least three times that he was better off without her, and made him think at least once (very wrongfully, of course) that she was breaking up with him. It wasn't supposed to be like this, their last night together. She was supposed to see how happy she made him so she could go without a constant, aching fear that he'd drift away from her. But, instead of that, she'd be leaving him with red-rimmed eyes and a memory of how she'd kept him up all night saying all sorts of things she didn't really believe.

She was wildly alternating between snapping when he touched her and crying out words she never thought she'd mean or ever say about how awful she was and what did he ever see in her? She couldn't do it. She couldn't sit there with his eyes on her, his hand cutting fiercely through his hair as he sighed.

"I'm going," she said, for the fourth time, only this time, she thought she really meant it.

His shirt covered her to mid-thigh, and she couldn't take another two minutes in his room. So, she stood and gathered her clothes in her arms… He leapt off the bed as she wrenched open his door. Evidently, he hadn't expected her to get this far.

"Hermione, don't-"

"I'll see you at the platform, if you decide to show up," she cut over him, slipping out onto the landing.

"Wait!" she heard him shout, as she started down the stairs to the loo.

His voice only made her move faster, until a memory flashed vivid, an echo of her own cries as he'd run away from her, in the middle of the woods, cold rain soaking her through-

"Please!" he called down the stairs, a full floor behind her.

Her heart beat wildly as she slowed, arriving outside the loo and releasing a powerful breath which broke into a sob. She tugged open the door and dragged herself inside, not bothering to shut it behind her as she felt him catching up to her, anyway.

She dropped her clothes to the floor and hugged her body with both arms, shaking, back toward him as she heard him join her inside, the door clicking shut as he closed it, trapping them together. Exactly what she'd tried to run away from.

"Muffliato, Lumos," he whispered, and the dark room suddenly glowed gently from the light at the end of his wand, which he dropped to the sink. "What the hell is happening?" he said to her, his voice holding a lot more fear than before.

She shivered more fiercely, unable to catch her breath.

"P-Please, j-just go away."

"Is that what you really want?" he asked, and she thought she heard a rather substantial bit of true panic in his tone now.

She silently cried for what had to have been another solid minute, before the hot tears rolling down her cheeks slowed and she was breathing somewhat steadily again. She turned and sat on top of the closed toilet lid, arms still tightly wrapped around her. Her eyes flashed up to where he stood, hands on the edge of the sink, not looking at her. He seemed to be thinking very hard about something, and his wand light was glowing beautifully in his blue eyes. She sniffed loudly and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

He'd followed her down here in only his boxers, and she now managed to distantly worry that someone would need the loo and find him like that, with her. But it was so far from the most important thing at the moment that she wasn't even sure how much she cared.

"All you were doing was trying to be casual and normal, but I didn't _want_ you to. I'm leaving in a few hours-"

"Yeah. I know," he said gravely, cutting her off.

She dug her nails into her upper arm, forcefully willing him to look at her, even though she'd just been wondering if she might as well Apparate directly from the loo to her parents' house in order to escape. She was so twisted up inside, part of her feeling selfish and lost and useless, and the other part tangled up in pure terror of him leaving her.

"You t-told me I wasn't being _fair_ ," she stuttered, actually feeling slightly lightheaded. It was way too late to be up at all, much less in the middle of the most emotional conversation she had ever had.

His eyes finally flashed over to hers at her words, and she once again felt that impossible rush of mingled relief and dread.

"'Cause I didn't understand what the fuck you were hacked off with me about…"

"That's great," she huffed. "You're angry now."

"What? I'm not!"

She thought he was almost glaring at her, which made his words that much less believable. She stood sharply and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So, why are you shouting?!"

He turned to fully face her, looking beyond frustrated now.

"Why are _you_ crying?!"

God, she really had pushed him too far, and she didn't see a way back. Cryptic words escaped her, knowing he wouldn't understand…

"It's been so long, I almost forgot…"

He closed his eyes for a brief moment as he roughly rubbed a hand across his jaw.

"I still don't know what I did!"

"I told you!" she insisted, at too high a pitch. "You don't listen!"

"Tell me again."

Honestly, she'd become regretfully aware that she was only shouting and blaming him as a defense for hating the fact that she'd actually gotten so worked up over such a stupid thing like him not breaking down and sobbing at the prospect of her leaving in a few hours… She didn't even really want to have to admit this, and the easiest thing to do was to simply avoid putting words to what she'd been calling his fault, in the hopes that he wouldn't find out how absolutely ridiculous it was.

"Hermione, please… tell me again, and I'll listen properly."

She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but it caught multiple times in her throat. This row was now achingly familiar, so many attempts, in the past, to hide their true feelings. Only, this time, he was still here, maybe from guilt, maybe fear, but it was the difference between the way they'd been before they'd admitted how they felt… and the way they were now. She'd just fallen back to the past, too easily.

"I'm not good at this," she muttered, and he moved the tiniest bit closer, evidently unable to hear her properly.

"What?"

"I've never done this before, you know, and I-"

"Done what?"

Why did he sound so afraid? She chanced a direct look into his eyes, and she was slowly forgetting why there had been a fire inside her chest, propelling her to unintentionally hurt him.

"Never had a _boyfriend_ before, have I… never had a row like this with anyone," she said, which really was a useless statement, because of course he knew this.

"Not sure that last bit's true. We've had plenty of rows… but I reckon I've never done _this_ kind, either," he said in a gravelly voice.

"Of course you have," she snapped a bit, breaking away from his gaze again quickly, thinking of Lavender but avoiding her name.

"That's not even close to the same thing. You know that."

They both really loved to say things without actually saying them, didn't they.

"You couldn't _wait_ to be shot of her once things got more serious," she said, tightening her arms across her chest, "once she wasn't just hanging on you and trying to kiss you in front of everyone-"

"Yeah, because I was an immature git who was only snogging her so people - most importantly _you_ \- would see I was capable of having a girl fancy me."

Okay, so _that_ was actually a straightforward sentence.

"I'm really bloody sorry for that," he added, "but it's what I did, and I can't undo it."

And then she saw, in that moment, just how many things he probably still held onto, painfully regretting them even though they were behind him, and she wondered how she could ever convince him not to feel that way, to stop blaming himself for past mistakes. Well, she knew one thing for sure - she'd never get him to forgive himself if she kept bringing it up in a fight…

Disapproving of herself more than she ever had before, she closed her eyes and let a fresh wave of tears drown her cheeks in silence.

"Hermione-"

She opened her eyes again, too reactive to the sound of his scratchy voice across her name, and he'd moved tentatively closer, but her vision of him was blurry through her tears.

"I want to take it all back - really, I do," she said, sadly, "and just pretend like everything's fine-"

"Why would you have to pretend?" She watched his neck move as he nervously swallowed. She could clear that up. She only had herself to blame, and she didn't deserve him.

"Because I'm leaving in a few hours," she trembled, "and you're going to see how much better you are without me!"

She watched the tense creases at the corners of his eyes iron out as his eyebrows lifted.

"That's completely insane."

"Thanks!" she shouted, shrilly, once again hating the sound of her own sarcastic voice.

"No, no… come on," he urged, quickly. "I mean I'm bloody in love with you, and it's literally unbelievable you'd actually want to be with me, and I'd have to be Imperiused to ever break up with you."

So, he'd thrown her off, a bit. But she couldn't fight down the spiraling insecurity, born somewhere in a sea of trying to be perfect at everything.

"You can't know for sure how you'll feel when I'm gone," she said, more under control now, at least.

"Yes, I can."

His lack of hesitation derailed her yet again, but he _couldn't_ know for sure. Could he?

"How could you? It's only been four months since we've-" She searched for the words that encompassed what they were, but she didn't have time to find the right ones before he was speaking again.

"Four months is rubbish. I've known you since you were twelve. And if you're so worried about this, then I could ask you the same thing. Don't you think it's likely you'll realise I'm definitely not the best _you_ could do?"

"What?! That's ridiculous."

He stared pointedly at her, though she could see his lips twitching. He probably needed her confirmation as much as she did his…

"That's not the point, Ron," she tried, sensing that she really was being unfair to know for sure she wouldn't leave _him_ , yet not to believe that he could know the same thing in reverse.

He stared at her, clearly at a loss.

"I know you love me," she started, quietly, "or you wouldn't be here right now, but you're going to see how… how _unfair_ I am, how bad I am at just being casual and calm and a happy part of your life, because now I've kept you up all night, probably said some really awful things earlier that I can't even remember, and-"

She paused and took in a heavy sniff of a breath, feeling it catch in the back of her throat again and angrily cursing the fact that she was somehow on the verge of tears once more.

"Even if you actively tried, you couldn't make me stop loving you," he said. "I'm gonna miss you every second you're gone, and nothing will change."

She bit her lip, forcing back her tears.

"I know you believe that," she said at a near-whisper, "but I've really messed it up, and I don't think you realise-"

"You haven't, but what can I say?"

She _really_ didn't deserve him.

He was standing so close that she could feel heat radiating from his body, and she really tried not to notice how naked he was, but there was just so much skin, and only his shirt, on her, and his pants, on him, to separate them.

She wished she could go back and spend the whole night in his bed, happy, instead of this nonsense… Whatever time she had with him, whether or not it would end some day, she should enjoy each second, not waste them in fear of the next one possibly being the last.

But he was staring at her like he meant every word as much as she could ever mean them in return.

"Look, if I can't make you believe me," he said, "I'll quit the Aurors and come back to Hogwarts with you."

"What?!" Somehow, she managed to laugh, a sort of bubbling up of irrational emotions. Of course he wouldn't _actually-_

"I'm serious."

He really _was_. His conviction had become too infectious, and she stared up at him for one more second before she couldn't take it anymore.

"Oh my God." She threw her arms around his neck, and he held her so tight, and maybe she really did believe him. Or, she believed that _he_ believed it, and he'd always been better at believing things than she had, in the past, anyway…

"You thought I wasn't gonna miss you 'cause I haven't talked about it," he realised aloud, and she hated how she could feel her cheeks burn in response to the truth he'd spoken.

She closed her eyes and listened to him sighing.

"I've been trying bloody hard not to be a prat about it," he continued, still holding her tight. "I thought if you saw I didn't want you to go, then you might think you shouldn't."

Her eyes opened slowly, and she stared at his bare shoulder, pale skin glowing in wand light.

"You don't want me to-"

"I just mean I've been trying to act like everything's great so we could have a good time before we go for weeks without seeing each other. You have to go, I know it's the right thing. But I prob'ly should have let you know it's not easy for me to imagine being without you."

She let go of him enough to rest her hands on his shoulders and stare up into his eyes.

"How can I fix it?" she asked, in such a tiny voice.

"Don't have to fix anything," he smiled, resting a large hand against her cheek. "Just bloody glad you don't want to chuck me or go back to your parents' house, anymore-"

"I wasn't going to," she admitted. "I just thought I was ruining your night…"

"That was uh… pretty intense," he half-grinned, "but I'll take it over you leaving."

"I'm rubbish at apologising… but I'm really sorry."

"No, that was a good one," he said, brushing his thumb over her cheek. His eyes flicked down to her lips, and she sensed he wasn't even sure if he was allowed to kiss her yet.

Someone knocked on the door and they both jumped.

"Oi, who's in there?" Ginny shouted. "Hurry up, would you?"

"Come back up to my room?" Ron asked Hermione as he let go of her and reached for his wand. She nodded and swiped her hand over her tear-stained face as he removed his Muffliato and cracked open the door.

Ginny glanced in at them, her expression changing from annoyed to mildly concerned.

"Alright?" she asked, shifting her eyes to Hermione's dark form behind her brother.

"Yes," Hermione sniffed, gathering her clothes off the floor and placing a hand on Ron's back to encourage him to leave. "We're fine."

Ginny's sceptical gaze followed them as they brushed past her and began to make their way up the stairs to Ron's room.

* * *

Dawn was streaking pink and purple through his window, and she knew they weren't going to get any more sleep. But they'd climbed back into his bed, anyway, and his arm was around her waist, her back against his chest. Her eyes were burning and her head was throbbing dully from too much crying, and she was playing a little game of trying to match her breathing with his when he finally spoke in a scratchy half-whisper.

"Still awake?"

She turned slightly toward him, squinting a bit, and he pushed up onto his elbow to stare down at her profile.

"You okay?" he asked, not needing a verbal answer to his previous question, anymore.

"Mm, yeah, got a headache."

He covered her forehead with his hand, and she closed her eyes.

"You feel hot," he pointed out, and she opened her eyes to silently acknowledge the joke she knew he was going to discover in a second. "Okay, well that, too," and he lowered his hand to her hip, tugging her backward a bit, "but y'know what I meant."

He sat up, grinning sleepily, positioning his back against his headboard, and he dropped his hand to her head again, slowly moving his fingers through her hair.

"Rub my head a bit?" she muttered, wondering if he could have heard her. But, whether or not he _had_ , or had simply decided to do exactly that anyway, he started pressing his fingertips into her scalp and she sighed, closing her eyes again.

After a few calm moments, she sat up and crawled over him, lying back down, half on top of his legs, her head in his lap, cheek against his thigh. He smoothed her hair back from her face and resumed massaging her head, using both hands now.

"Any better?" he asked, after a while.

"Oh, yes… thank you," she sighed.

One of his hands moved across the back of her neck, a short distance down the middle of her spine. She turned her head over in his lap to look up at him, finding his tired eyes staring down at her.

"Hope you can sleep some later," she said, but he smiled, tilting his head to the side, evidently amused by the way she was looking at him, upside down.

"Eh, m'fine," he yawned.

He leaned forward and tried to kiss her, but he couldn't quite make it work from his angle. Laughing, she sat up, took his face in both hands, and softly pressed her lips to his. One of his hands ran up and down her arm, and the other was on the side of her neck, and she suddenly felt like she probably had too many clothes on… which amounted to only his shirt and her knickers, anyway… but…

She climbed further into his lap, sitting on his thighs with her knees spread on either side of him, and he gripped her waist, making soft little pleasurable sounds into her mouth. And though the thought of leaving had been unbearable earlier, now that she'd spent all that she had on tears and rowing, she could understand why he didn't want to talk about it. There was sadness to being separated, and then there was the happiness that came with knowing that at least they had a future, that it would be wonderful. The only thing between them would be the physical distance, and there were so many ways around that.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled against his mouth, and he pulled slightly back to search her eyes for explanation. She shook her head, and he half-smiled, still confused.

Now that she'd said it, she didn't want to explain, so she distracted him by reaching down and pulling his shirt off her body, tossing it over the edge of his bed. His hands moved across her warm skin, sweeping over her entire upper body in a few seconds, and she let her eyes flutter shut as his thumbs smoothed over her breasts. When she felt his mouth on her jaw, she opened her eyes again and took his face in her hands to kiss him deeply, crushing her naked chest to his, causing him to lean back against his headboard and wrap an arm low around her waist.

She rubbed herself against him, feeling his length between her legs, separated by knickers and pants… too much cotton. She dragged her mouth away from his to climb off him, tug his pants down his legs and remove her knickers, settling on his lap again.

"Ermynee," he muttered against her parted lips, one of his hands rounding over her bare arse as she arched against him, wanting to be as close as physically possible… more than possible, actually.

She was breathing in little, aching bursts, warm pleasure gathering between her legs as she felt him, anticipating what she wanted, the satisfaction she would feel when he was inside her again. But she waited, and he held the back of her neck, ducking her head until his mouth was covering her ear, hot half-kisses moving further back, up into her hair.

" _Please_ ," she heard herself say, contradicting her desire to hold out as long as she could. She must have reached that point much faster than she'd thought she would. He rasped an exhale into her ear and slid his face back until her forehead was against his and his hand was moving down between her legs. She pressed her knees into the mattress and lifted, sinking down onto him as he groaned and tilted his head back, filling her.

Rather than thrusting into her, he moved his hands to hold onto her hips, and she angled her body so he was softly rubbing against that swollen spot, deep inside her. This was the kind of feeling she hadn't really known was part of it, in all her studying of how anatomy worked. She'd read about the way it could feel, what to do to make it better, but the truth was that no book could explain how much love played a part, how she was totally overwhelmed by the feeling of his body, the look in his eyes, how much she knew he loved her, in return…

And everything she'd feared from before about whether he would really stay with her for good had vanished into thin air, a laughable reminder that she had convinced herself of so many lies, as she knew he had, too, for years.

They'd been together many times now, and she'd lost count weeks ago, but she'd never felt an orgasm build so quick, and she clenched around him, muscles trembling as she threaded her fingers through his hair.

"Fuck, Hermione…"

His fingers dug into her thighs, and she cried out an approximation of his name, heart pounding in her ears as pulsing waves of pleasure fanned out through her whole body. And she felt him move inside her again as he came with her, squinting his eyes shut and tilting his head back again to breathe.

When he opened his eyes again, seconds later, she was staring at him, taking in every detail of his gorgeous face - beads of sweat at his temples; his parted and swollen lips; a peppering of stubble, mixing with his many freckles, her second favourite shade of copper. His fringe was jagged across his forehead, and she reached up to smooth it back.

He was staring so lovingly back, and she didn't want to move, maybe not for the rest of her life. But she smiled at her own irrational thought, already feeling her legs cramp a bit from her position on top of him. So, she dragged herself away, settling again between his arm and his chest, and he shifted them down from his headboard to lie flat on his bed, his legs sprawling out and his hand spreading across her back.

And she wasn't going to think of how much she would miss him, and she knew now that she didn't have to be afraid. All she had to do was remember the way his eyes flashed into hers, knowing that he wanted the same things she did… she could always recall the way his fingertips felt on her skin and the way he said-

"I love you, Hermione."


End file.
